Z170 Extreme6+/7+ Linux compatibility
Printed From: ASRock.com
Category: Media&User's Review
Forum Name: Intel Motherboards
Forum Description: ASRock Intel Motherboards
URL: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1506
Printed Date: 28 Sep 2024 at 1:14am
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Topic: Z170 Extreme6+/7+ Linux compatibility
Posted By: undy
Subject: Z170 Extreme6+/7+ Linux compatibility
Date Posted: 13 Dec 2015 at 10:39pm
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Hallo, I am planning to assemble a new PC based on the Z170 Extreme6+ or Z170 Extreme7+, on which I will install only a GNU/Linux distribution (no Windows at all). Is there anybody who can tell me some words on the compatibility of these motherboards with Linux? Thanks a lot!
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Replies:
Posted By: memory_leak
Date Posted: 12 Jun 2016 at 3:36am
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I also am intersted a bit about Linux compatibility with raid 0 nvme drives. As of my research, to answer the original Op post, all components usually being troublesome are/should be supported (network driver, sound, storage). What I personally wonder if anyone have tried to install a distro on fake raid over two M.2 drives with this board? (either with dm_raid or mdadm).
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Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 12 Jun 2016 at 1:57pm
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I can't tell you anything about the Linux support on this board. I can tell you that the RAID support for NVMe PCIe SSDs is provided by the Intel version 14 Option ROM, and version 14 IRST driver in Windows, preferably 14.6 or 14.8. You can tell me if any of this is compatible with any Linux distro. The Windows 10 fake RAID benchmarks I've seen of NVMe PCIe SSDs were quite good IMO. The Intel PCIe SSD RAID 0 performance scaling is not what we get with SATA drives, meaning by a factor of two or three when using two or three SATA SSDs. The Intel RAID support for PCIe SSDs needs work IMO, it is not mature by any means, and is somewhat buggy. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: memory_leak
Date Posted: 15 Jun 2016 at 1:51am
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We.ll I'm not sure why you answered than but ok :-) The reason why you don't see same scaling with nvme drives is because they are behind same DMA link which is in Z170X limited to about 3.4GB/sec. However, don't go blind about this, for normal use, if you raid0 your 950s pro you will still experience sick load times. My windows boots in like 3 secs or so. Actually I don't know, I didn't took time, but it is insanely fast even compared to my laptop which boots off of a 840Pro. If you are interested to read in more details about raid and limitations you can check up this review/test: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/Triple-M2-Samsung-950-Pro-Z170-PCIe-NVMe-RAID-Tested-Why-So-Snappy . Check the video, the written article ommits disscussion and most of details. When it comes to linux this board has, as far as I have checked it, support for autiio & network interfaces which is usually what is lacking. Support for nvme drives and intel sata is build into linux kernel and tools (mdadm) since Intel develops open sourced drivers for Linux. Usuallly there is no problems with Intel's hardware if you want to run it on Linux. I haven't checked yet if there is a Linux driver for 950 Pro, and can't tell how good is implementation in kernel compared to Samsungs windows driver implementation, I will have to check it later on. When it comes to Linux and so called fakeraid, which is what motherboard raid is called since motherboards, inclusive this one too, does not come with real raid support (a dedicated hardware) there are some problems. The performance is usually better with software raid (OS does raid) than what one gets with fakeraid, simply bc OS usually have better drivers and better written software due to maturity of implementation and resource poured into it. The reason why one would use fakeraid is the simplicity of use, and as far as Windows it is much simpler to install fakeraid during the windows installation than to software raid afterwards. When it comes to Linux implementation, both fake and software raid goes through mdadm, and setup is more or less same, so there really is no advantage over using fakeraid,. As much as I am educated about it, I am not an expert so I might be wrong. Big problem with Linux has been with booting fakeraid 0 arrays, which actually is not so much problem to Linux itself, but was more associted with its bootloader Grub which didn't have support ffor doing it. Things should have become better as I read from blogs and forum posts, but I haven't got it working yet. |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 15 Jun 2016 at 9:03am
Been there, done that, and replied in full to your post in this thread: http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=2835&PN=1&title=samsung-950-pro-512gb-m2-nvme-not-recognised-afte" rel="nofollow - http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=2835&PN=1&title=samsung-950-pro-512gb-m2-nvme-not-recognised-afte ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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memory_leak wrote: